


Hanahaki Disease

by Rin_Pride



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Heavy Angst, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Sad, Sad Ending, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 23:29:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17590460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rin_Pride/pseuds/Rin_Pride
Summary: Hanahaki disease.The illness where flowers grown in the lungs of a person who is in love with someone who does not return their feelings. Their body’s response is to cough up the flowers, but unless they are cured, the flowers will overtake their lungs and they will be unable to breathe, therefore will die.There are only two cures for the disease. One is that the person you are in love with develops romantic feelings for you. The other is surgery to remove the flowers from one’s lungs, but that will result in deleting all emotions and memories of the person that caused the flowers to grow.





	Hanahaki Disease

**_12 years old_ **

 

“We won!” Jay shouts as he’s running, flinging his arms wide open and jumping into the awaiting arms of his best friend.

 

“You won!” Lienn laughs and stumbles back from the impact of the other’s hug.

 

They’re pressed tightly against each other, and Lienn can feel Jay’s sweat from all the running. She buries a hand into his sweaty hair, the other clutching at his shirt. Her nose is buried into his neck, ignoring the stench. In return, the boy is also clutching at her shirt, his grin pressed into her collar bones.

 

“Jay!” one of his teammates calls out, “Come on! You need a shower!”

 

“Hey!” Jay shouts back, offended, and Lienn chuckles. “It’s true,” she confirms.

 

Jay puts a hand on his chest and a disbelieving look on his face. “Betrayal!”

 

He starts running backwards towards the changing room, and Lienn wonders how he still has so much energy left.

 

“Wait for me!”

 

“Always do!”

 

Lienn looks around, a grin still on her face.

 

Suddenly, she gets an uncomfortable feeling in her chest, as if something was scratching her from the inside. She coughs, and then puts a hand on her chest when the feeling doesn’t leave.

 

It’s not the first time she’s felt like that – it’s been happening for a while. But it seems worse today, somehow, even though it doesn’t hurt any more than usual.

 

 _But hurt isn’t the correct word_ , she thinks, frowning a bit. She moves the hand on her chest around a little, pressing down.

 

It feels like… like there’s something inside her chest. Like something’s… like something’s _growing_ inside her chest.

 

She coughs some more, and it makes her throat and chest itchy.

 

Lienn clears her throat and feels the uncomfortable feeling disappear all of a sudden, the only reminder left a taste in her mouth. She doesn’t recognize it at first, but when she’s walking home with Jay, and she notices a flower shop, she remembers the taste.

 

It tasted like petals.

 

*

 

**_14 years old_ **

 

Lienn looks at Jay with a smile on her face, watching him laugh so hard tears are slowly trailing down his face.

 

She admires how big his smile is, and how he is laughing so hard, there’s no noise left coming out, he’s just whizzing. She looks at him, leaning out of his window, crying and trying to catch his breath with a big grin on his face, and thinks he’s the most beautiful person she’s ever seen.

 

She hears a shout from his house, and figures Marie is calling him for dinner.

 

She smiles and waves at Jay, and he waves back, still breathing hard as he leaves his room.

 

Lienn suddenly feels the annoying feeling that just won’t leave, and she moves away from her window.

 

She sits on her bed and clears her throat, feeling once again as if something’s scratching her from the inside. She coughs a bit, thumps her chest with her fist, and suddenly, she can’t breathe she can’t breathe _she can’t breathe-_

 

She takes a big breath, a whiz accompanying it, and stares at her floor with wide-open eyes.

 

_She couldn’t breathe for a moment._

 

She’s still gasping for air when the urge to cough returns, chest and then throat itching, and she coughs, a hand in front of her lips, and then there’s something in her mouth.

 

Heart beating loudly in her ears, she opens her mouth and takes out a purple petal.

 

_A petal._

 

_No no no no no no-_

 

She coughs again, bent over, and there’s purple petals falling from her mouth, and they’re soft and small and pretty and _oh god there’s blood._

 

Suddenly there are no more petals falling out of her mouth, no more blood, but the feeling stays this time.

 

The uncomfortable feeling in her chest, the scratching from the inside and the itchiness, but now she knows what it is.

 

It’s flowers growing in her lungs.

 

It’s the hanahaki disease.

 

 

It’s only nine days later, locked in a bathroom stall in school, that she coughs up a whole flower.

 

When she looks it up later at home, hands shaking and blurry vision, she puts a name to the flower growing inside of her lungs.

 

_Morning glory._

 

Such a pretty name for something that’s slowly killing her.

 

*

 

_Hanahaki disease._

 

_The illness where flowers grown in the lungs of a person who is in love with someone who does not return their feelings. Their body’s response is to cough up the flowers, but unless they are cured, the flowers will overtake their lungs and they will be unable to breathe, therefore will die._

 

_There are only two cures for the disease. One is that the person you are in love with develops romantic feelings for you. The other is surgery to remove the flowers from one’s lungs, but that will result in deleting all emotions and memories of the person that caused the flowers to grow._

 

_Everyone knows of it._

 

_Lienn remembers the day Jay called her, panic in his voice, and told her to come to the hospital._

 

_She remembers the whole football team surrounding the hospital bed, the quarterback lying on it with tears in his eyes and a smear of blood on the side of his lip._

 

_She remembers how they all begged, pleaded Aaron to just confess, or get a surgery, to **live**. _

 

_She remembers how he confessed to Jasmine the next day, and the blessed look on his face when she agreed to date him._

 

_She remembers how her whole class stood watch to the moment Aaron couldn’t breathe anymore because his lungs were too full of flowers._

 

_She remembers how quiet the halls were after._

 

_She remembers how quiet the halls were again, only a week later, when Jasmine didn’t come to school, and how she was buried with a purple hyacinth, because she could not forgive herself for being responsible for Aaron’s pain and death._

 

_And she remembers how she used to think that the hanahaki disease was stupid._

 

_How flowers growing in a person’s lungs until they suffocated because of unrequited love was stupid._

 

_Couldn’t they just move on?_

 

_Couldn’t they just accept that just because one person doesn’t love them, doesn’t mean no one does?_

 

_Turns out, she’s stupid too._

 

*

 

**_18 years old_ **

 

“I coughed up some red carnations this morning. They’re new,” Lienn says casually, leaning on the wall, gaze locked on the flower shop on the other side of the street.

 

Marco doesn’t move his gaze from the shop.

 

“I had some red roses yesterday. The thorns are surprisingly hurtful.”

 

“No shit, Sherlock. I told you it was fucking annoying to have roses grow inside you.”

 

“It sucks to have any kind of flower grow in your lungs, really.” “Smartass.”

 

A beep makes them both jump in surprise, and they move their gaze to the passing blue car, Daniel waving at them with a smile behind the wheel.

 

Lienn waves back at him, and then smiles a little at how Marco’s straight-out _beaming_ at the guy, his face shining with joy.

 

Lienn wonders if she looks like that around Jay.

 

Daniel rounds the corner, disappearing from their view, and a second later Marco doubles over, one hand on his chest while the other hugs his stomach, eyes wide and not breathing.

 

Lienn moves quickly, putting a hand on his back and calling his name, when he takes in a deep breath, and then he’s coughing up flower after flower after petal after flower.

 

Lienn watches, frozen in shock, as different flowers fall from his mouth to the cement, no blood accompanying them.

 

Marco falls to his knees.

 

He stops coughing, and he takes a deep breath.

 

Then he blinks, looks at Lienn who’s kneeled next to him, and tears up.

 

“Marco, Marco, hey, shh, I’m here,” Lienn says, quickly. She never liked saying things like ‘it will be alright’ or ‘you’re okay now’ or ‘it’s over now’, because it never was. Hanahaki disease was deadly.

 

But the brunet smiles at her then, and with tears spilling down his face, he speaks.

 

“They’re gone,” he says, cries, laughs. “The flowers, they- I can’t feel them anymore. It’s- I- My lungs feel so empty, I- I- I feel so _alive_ , Lienn, I’m fine, there’s no- there’s no pain.”

 

Lienn stares at him, surprise clear on her face.

 

She looks at his trembling lips, pulled up in a relieved smile.

 

She looks at his hands, clutching hers, trembling from excitement.

 

She looks at his eyes, brown and golden and tearful and shining.

 

She looks at the flowers under his knees, around them, wilting away.

 

And then Lienn cries in happiness with Marco.

 

_Daniel loves him back._

 

*

 

**_20 years old_ **

 

“Why did you dye your hair purple?” Jay asks, laying on the floor with closed eyes.

 

_Because the first flower than grew inside her lungs was purple._

 

_Because the first proof of her stupidness was a purple flower._

 

_Because the first taste of the disease growing inside of her was that of a purple flower._

 

_Because the first reason for her death was a purple flower._

 

“It’s a pretty colour,” Lienn answers.

 

*

 

**_21 years old_ **

 

Lienn hugs Jay, all smiles and laughs and shining eyes, and then moves to the woman next to him.

 

“Take good care of him, River,” she says, winking, and River laughs as Jay makes an offended noise.

 

Then she moves her attention to the baby in the bride’s arms, and smiles softly.

 

“You have the best dad in the world, Evan,” she promises, and he gurgles in reply, reaching his small hand out and grabbing at air.

 

They laugh and coo at him, Jay reaching out and letting his son grab his finger, a small gurgle of excitement leaving his smiling mouth.

 

“Have fun, newlyweds,” sings Lienn as she waves at the happy family, making her way outside while they wave back.

 

The moment she is out in the dark, Lienn starts running out into the open field, as far as possible – but she doesn’t make it far before she doubles over, flowers and blood flowing from her mouth.

 

She cries and scratches at the grass and dirt and tries to breathe breathe _breathe_ as the coughing and flowers and blood refuse to stop.

 

She has not run far enough from the restaurant to be in complete dark, so she stares at all the flowers pilling underneath her.

 

_Morning glory, yellow carnation, red rose, yellow hyacinth, red carnation, aster, purple hyacinth._

 

She notices a new flower, one she’d never coughed up before.

 

But she recognizes it.

 

_Cyclamen._

 

_The flower representing death._

 

_The flower of goodbyes._

 

She couldn’t hear anything but her own heartbeat, beating _so fast_.

 

And then, she couldn’t breathe anymore, no more air could get into her lungs, because her lungs are already full, they are already full – of flowers.

 

 _I’m sorry, Jay,_ Lienn thinks, falling to the ground. _Please love him well, River, Evan._

 

Lienn’s vision goes dark while her eyes are still open, and then there is no pain left.

**Author's Note:**

> Flower meanings:  
> Aster - symbol of love, daintiness, wisdom  
> Red carnation - my heart aches, admiration, heartache  
> Yellow carnation - disdain, disappointment, rejection  
> Cyclamen - resignation, goodbye, death, all good things will eventually come to an end  
> Yellow hyacinth – jealousy  
> Morning glory - affection, love, mortality, love in vain  
> Red rose - love, longing, desire  
> Purple hyacinth – sorrow, asking for forgiveness


End file.
